Unbreakable
by Aqua Zephyrus
Summary: Aaron Hotchner looks like he can take almost anything after Foyet attacks him, but the facade he holds to the world is only just that.


**I've been at a bit of a block for the longest while now, and I haven't been able to break it due to a lot of factors. But now I have, and it's come out in the form of-well. This. A lot of Aaron angst, a lot of pain, and amazingly... something I'm actually proud of. Enjoy.**

**I own nothing you see.**

* * *

_"You can lay down and die, or you can get up and fight, but that's it - there's no turning back." Jon English._

* * *

It takes seconds, but it feels like a slow-motion film as Aaron swings his drink glass hard and fast for the Boston Reaper. He might be scared, but he refuses to show it right then to his nemesis. And it only does so much, unfortunately, especially as Foyet moves to swing the barrel of the gun into his temple.

As the blow connects, Aaron finds himself on the floor. He's still able to think surprisingly clearly as he reaches for his cell phone on the table. He has to call someone. Send out a text. Something. Anything. Speed dial was a blessing in and of itself, yes? But right before he can grab the device, Foyet slams a foot right into his head.

He's got to have a concussion or something right now, because his head is ringing like a motherfucker now. Everything is blurry. Everything hurts, and he desperately realizes that if he does not get up and _fight_, he's fucked. He can't let Foyet best him-hell, he doesn't even know what his goddamn plan is at this rate, but he isn't sure he cares. He just wants the bastard down and out for the count himself.

_"So tell me. Would I use this?"_

The first plunge of the knife is quick, and it takes him completely by surprise. Aaron's eyes widen as his body arches upward_into_ the blade, only making it go in deeper for a moment before he collapses back on the ground. The second stab is quicker, angrier really, and Aaron made a soft noise of pain and rage. It's impossible. It's not _fucking possible_ as George Foyet pulls the knife out of him once more.

How. How did he...?

The mind is already becoming an incoherent blur. Aaron can't concentrate on anything but pushing out the pain, and he feels a third blade easing into his skin so torturously. The metal pushes into flesh, and he can't help but softly gasp this time. But God help him as he focuses on _not satisfying_ the killer now on top of him. He's bleeding out, but somehow, he can't remember that he's not hitting anywhere remotely near the major arteries. In fact, as he pulls the blade out slowly and easily, he's not doing this for the kill.

Foyet's doing this in a sort of sickening erotic manner. He's holding the blade in front of Aaron, and all the unit chief can whisper out is a simple _"I will kill you..."_

_"Ssssh. You've lost a lot of blood..."_

By this point, he's fading in and out of the stab wounds, and George slips his clothing off and drops a comment about making Aaron look just the same. If he had it in him, he'd be spitting in his face and telling him to fuck the hell right off.

By the time the fourth stab wound slides into Aaron's skin, he's merely arching his body now so slowly into the stabbing gestures. He's in pain, and he's still fucking conscious. But he's not sure how much longer he can keep this up and _not_ give George Foyet that satisfaction he's almost laid another victim to rest. He has to fight the oncoming blackness in his vision, the darkness he's finding himself swimming in because he will _not give him that fucking satisfaction he's won._

But when the fifth stab is already making a horrific, long, agonizing mark into Aaron, he almost wishes he can give in to the darkness. And unfortunately, his body commands it.

When the blade pierces the flesh, he's already out and hurting in more than simply body.

* * *

It takes him months to accept the scars on his torso.

He can't even bring himself to look in the mirror in the first month after the attack. If he does, he's completely clothed and very much standing tall as he can as he cleans himself, shaves, and prepares to go in with a somber resolve to find Foyet.

The shower is even worse. Cleaning himself requires him to look down at his everything, and it's hard enough as it is to shower without sometimes feeling the water almost permeate the skin and enter his wounds. But when he soaps himself up and is forced to _feel_ those scars on his body, he sometimes doesn't even make it all the way down his frame before he stops and finds himself tearing up in rage.

_How could he let this happen._

_How could he be so stupid._

He doesn't shed them long enough to have them fall; he doesn't cry. He won't cry because he's a team leader. He needs to be focused, calm, emotions put aside on the job. He was stabbed-he wasn't killed. But he was definitely stabbed nine goddamn times in his own apartment.

He sleeps with a gun in the nightstand now and another under his pillow. Sometimes, he screams in his sleep to not touch his son or his ex, a surefire vision of what could come in the next few months. And he'll wake up with the gun in his shaking hand with a snarl bared with lips peeled back in the darkness, only to realize it was nothing but a dream.

But he won't tell anyone it terrifies him. The team worries and knows he's anything _but_ okay, but what the fuck does it matter anyway. He gets the job done, he saves the people, he goes home. Rinses. Repeats.

He _won't_ become a slave to Foyet and just crumble under the pressure. Sure, it might just appear it to the killer, but he won't just bend over to his will. Not now.

He will _fight_ until the bitter end, and he doesn't care.

* * *

He will fight... until the bitter end...

...and he cares. Perhaps too much.

It comes to a point where Aaron Hotchner subconsciously asks himself if he will turn into the one thing he's been trying to catch for the last four months now-a killer. And it may very well haunt him for the rest of his life; as for right now, however, it doesn't matter.

What matters the most is slamming George Foyet's head into the floor repeatedly. Punching him is taking too much time, too much effort. His right hand hurts from slamming into the flesh of the murderer in front of him, and he smells of Haley. He smells of his ex, and the roars of anger have become grunts. He's grabbed the collar of Foyet's shirt and is literally banging it into the floor running on nothing but pure adrenaline and raw rage. His face is a mess of his own blood and the bastard's as well, but what does it matter?

He doesn't hear Derek, Rossi, and Prentiss coming into the room to see their once-composed boss nothing more than an animal killing its prey. It doesn't seem to faze David, but Emily looks stunned. Derek doesn't even seem to care, running over to Aaron and literally _grabbing_ him; he's _pulling_ his friend off of a dead man, and that's when the animal retreats.

Aaron is nothing but inconsolable now.

_"It's over, man... it's okay, it's over..."_

It is nowhere near _close_ to being over for Aaron as he jerks away from his partner and bolts up the stairwell to find his son hiding in the hidden bookshelf. Pulling him out, telling him he's okay when he's anything but that. Daddy's the hero who will catch the bad guy, even if it means he gets a little banged up in the end.

But when JJ takes the boy downstairs and Spencer stands there in the doorway with his cane, Aaron can feel it. He can _feel_the seams coming undone, the cracks breaking. He stands up, composing himself for that brief moment to try and show he's all right, when it's _clear as day_ that he damn well isn't. But Spencer nods and glances to the bedroom, respecting his boss. His friend.

Aaron enters the bedroom. Derek is there, feeling Haley's wrist for a pulse. There is nothing there as Aaron slowly wanders over to kneel down next to her body.

All the man can offer is those four words. _"I'm so sorry, Hotch."_

He just looks from Haley to Morgan with dead eyes. Tears are already filling them as he picks up her body, cradling it in his arms.

And that is when he finally comes apart, breaks down, and sobs. They're heaving, choking noises as he cradles her frame for the next ten, fifteen minutes.

He couldn't save her. Hell, he doesn't even know if he'll be able to save himself in the next few months. Aaron knows he won't be able to look at himself in the mirror without hearing those ominous words: _"You should've made a deal."_

He wonders if he can even say he's won, even if Foyet's dead. He's made his mark-mind, body, soul. Foyet took his body with a knife. His mind with the mirror.

And now it's almost like he's taken Aaron's soul.

He's not sure how long it will be before he's ever truly okay again. As far as he's concerned, he might not ever be.


End file.
